From a utilitarian point of view, it probably makes more sense to attempt to minimize suffering rather than opting out of the decision and thereby passively enable greater suffering.

But hey, it’s the trolley problem all over again, and people hate even thinking about that one.

Oh, corruption is going to thrive under Trump. Did you not notice that last time around? Did you not notice the fake charities, the tax payer money funneled into Mar-a-Lago, the hundreds of millions going to Trump PACs, the money going to the Trump hotel in Washington DC, all the corruption and bribes and schemes?

And the fun thing is that now that Trump knows how to do all of this, how to funnel millions into his own pocket, a second Trump presidency is going to be corruption on steroids.

The only thing that’s going to crumble are democratic norms and human rights in the United States.

Ironically, so is supporting the Hamas position that Israel shouldn’t exist.

Which is why they released women for the other 7 days. Love how this article contradicts itself in the first sentence.

Here’s the entire sentence:

Israeli official says Hamas doesn’t want to release remaining women because it doesn’t want them speaking publicly about what they endured on Oct. 7 and in their time in captivity

which clearly implies that Hamas was fine releasing female hostages that were treated okay, but is refusing to release the remaining female hostages that have possibly been abused, raped, sexually mistreated.

You obviously don’t have to agree with that analysis, but where exactly do you see the contradiction?

You’re spelling out how they’re acting like a neutral party here.

Qatar is knowingly and willingly hosting the leadership of a terrorist organization that mass murders innocent civilians - both Israelis and Palestinians. Hamas leaders live in luxury in Qatar, they have billions of dollars stashed away.

That makes Qatar about as “neutral” about Hamas as the Taliban were “neutral” about al Qaeda.

It’s a destitute open air prison. Come on now.

You act like I’m debating that, or like I’m taking sides.

I’m not.

I’m just pointing out that a totalitarian regime - a regime that tolerates no dissent, that enforces strict religious laws, that suppresses women, that has the death penalty for homosexuality, that openly uses slave labor - isn’t some kind of neutral party if it has a vested interest in Gaza and has been openly supporting Hamas for decades.

I don’t blindly trust their reporting.

That’s all I’m asking for.

The hostage deal was negotiated by Qatar, the Hamas leadership is living in luxury in Qatar, Qatar is seeking to gain more influence in the future of Gaza.

Is this really the right moment to blindly trust the Qatar state owned news source with its reporting about a Qatar negotiated deal related to a conflict that Qatar has a vested interest in?

If they call for genocide? Yes, of course.

What makes you think society should just sit idly by and do nothing when people call for mass murder and genocide?

From the article you’re commenting on:

The suspects were said to have celebrated the attacks by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, and were accused of spreading hate speech against Jewish people on social media, using symbols of banned terrorist organizations, dpa reported.

and

One suspect allegedly sent a sticker in a WhatsApp school class chat with the words “Gas the Jews.” Another person, a German-Turkish dual citizen, allegedly posted on his account that “the Jewish sons” deserved nothing more than to be “exterminated,” dpa reported.

So probably more the category “celebrating antisemitic terrorism” and “calling for the extermination of all Jews.”

You decide:

One suspect allegedly sent a sticker in a WhatsApp school class chat with the words “Gas the Jews.” Another person, a German-Turkish dual citizen, allegedly posted on his account that “the Jewish sons” deserved nothing more than to be “exterminated,” dpa reported.

and from a German source:

A German-Turkish defendant is said to have posted on his account that “the Jewish sons” deserved nothing more than to be slaughtered “and exterminated”.

and

According to the LKA, a Turkish citizen posted a picture of Hitler shortly after October 7, adding: “I could kill all the Jews, but I left some alive to show you why I killed them.” Next to it, he posted a Palestinian flag, the caption “Free Palestine” and an emoji with a victory sign.

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Honestly, though: good for those Catholic laypeople in Texas to complain to the friggin’ Vatican that this guy is a compete nut job!

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These cars don’t even go onto highways or areas where accidents are more likely.

Accidents are less likely on highways. Most accidents occur in urban settings. Most deadly accidents occur outside of cities, off-highway.

Clearly the driver is at fault here, but a case can be made (and apparently, was) that this would not have been possible had you not provided access to the car to the perp in question.

This is the equivalent of holding gun manufacturers culpable if someone buys a gun from them and then uses it to commit murder - right?

Pocket Casts is available as Android and Windows app; Apple Podcasts isn’t.

Pocket Casts syncs between MacOS, iOS, Android, Windows and Abby device that asked you to open the wenn player; Apple Podcasts doesn’t.

It’s not garbage per se, it just doesn’t fit the same use case.

Many “tech journalists” are about as old as Facebook.

When they started using devices, the iPhone had been around for years, and the only discussion platforms they ever knew where centralized platforms with millions and millions of users run by mega corporations. In their personal life experience, Reddit has always just existed, they’ve never known a world without YouTube, Snapchat is what they used when they were little kids, TikTok had been around long enough that’s it’s considered an established media outlet.

They’ve never seen a Usenet group, they’ve never had accounts on phpbb forums. Choosing a smaller platform with a more selective userbase just doesn’t exist in their reality.

Seems crazy to pay $42,000 per month for the API, have the API randomly break on you, have no tech support available, and just generally witness all the insanity going on at Musk’s Twitter, and yet still hold out hope that it’s all going to be fine.

Strong echoes of Microsoft’s “embrace, extend, and extinguish” strategy…

I particularly like the part where this specific submersible can’t ever be opened from the inside, because it gets bolted shut from outside.

Yeah, I get that, and hypothetically you could just use a mobile device for text creation, using your preferred method of inputting text (e.g. a swipe keyboard, or a stylus with text recognition, etc.) on the mobile device and then send it all to the desktop.

I asked about that, and I didn’t get a definitive answer. The conversation was more like:

“You don’t get it, we grew up with touchscreen devices, physical keyboards are outdated.”

“So do you use voice to text or something?”

“No! You don’t get it. We grew up with mobile devices!”

“But… How do you enter text!?”

“Nobody cares about your typewriting skills!!”

They stared at me.

I stared back.

The generational gap felt like the Grand Canyon.